Marvel Comics is having a run of good to terrific movies, and "Daredevil" is no exception. It's not up to the high levels of "Spider-Man" or "X-Men," but that's no failing. Just as the character Daredevil himself is an effective but second-string character, so too is the movie: effective and second string. Despite post-production reshoots to make the film more spectacular, "Daredevil" tells a smaller, more intimate story than the other Marvel movies. This time, the hero doesn't have to save the world, but instead works at bringing down the crime lord of New York city.
The story is told briskly and efficiently by writer-director Mark Steven Johnson ("Simon Birch"), with few interludes and asides. The movie opens as costumed superhero Daredevil (Ben Affleck) crashes to the floor of a large Catholic church. As the camera comes in for a ...

“Iron Man” is the best super-hero movie since “Spider-Man 2,” which places it among the top five or six ever made. It’s terrific in some of the ways almost all super-hero movies, good or mediocre, have been: it’s full of action and special effects, and the effects are sensational. But it also has strengths in areas where all too many comic book-based movies have been weak: the characters are interesting, the hero in particular, the acting is well above average, and the story has a lot of heart. Plus, it’s enough fun to keep you glued into your seat, your eyes wide, your ears tuned to pick up the often-sharp dialogue. Hot damn.
Robert Downey, Jr., has famously been through a lot of self-induced hell over the past decade and a half—major drug problems, a flippant, uncaring attitude toward his own ...

"Kill Bill Vol. 2" is a sequel that doesn't leave you disappointed. It is a mixed bag whether the film is better or worse than the original. Personally, I think the sequel surpasses the first film in every one. It is far more engaging and has more than revenge in the plot. Sure, it falls more in the typical Hollywood blockbusters genre. At the same time it is unique and imaginative.
Tarantino continues the 1970s kung-fu style of the first volume here in the sequel. The structure of the film is divided into unorganized chapters that in the end make perfect sense. In fact, the sequel feels more like a separate film from its predecessor. It recaps the first film at the beginning, but then takes off in a new direction. The plot is more complicated than the "out-for-revenge" plot of ...

Director/writer Quentin Tarantino is sort of like a human refinery, distilling old movies rather than crude oil. Elements of low-budget exploitation movies from the ‘60s and ‘70s – American, Japanese, Hong Kong, Spanish, you name it – come together in his films in ways that are both previously undreamt-of and perfectly natural.
“Kill Bill Volume 1” continues this blending of styles, going from ‘70s grindhouse kung fu catfights to Hong Kong heroism to a samurai-esque duel to the death, all in service to a tale of epic vengeance. A character known only as The Bride or Black Mamba (Uma Thurman) has spent four years in a coma after being shot in the head by her former employer, Bill (David Carradine, heard but not clearly seen here). Bill has had his Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, of which Black Mamba was a star ...

The theatrical review on ModernHomeTheater.com of "Hulk" still stands. However, enough time has elapsed that it’s safe to specify what was disappointing at the film; doing so in 2003 would have been too many spoilers. Clearly, Ang Lee and his writers wanted to introduce mature elements to the comic book idea of a man who turns into a invulnerable, very powerful green giant. The route they took, however, wasn’t all it could have been. Introducing Bruce Banner’s father, at least as presented here, wasn’t wise; though Nick Nolte (and Paul Kersey in the early scenes) are both very good as David Banner, the connections between him and his research and his adult son and HIS research seem forced and contrived. Making the climax a battle between Banner in Hulk form and his father who has, improbably, become a well-known Marvel ...